Hilma af Klint The Swan, No. 1, The SUW Series, Group IX 1914–5, oil on canvas, 1500 × 1500mm, courtesy Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm. Photo: Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
Waking before dawn is the most practical thing I can do.
When the morning is at its deepest, my mind at its most liminal, and my children’s soft bodies still tucked warmly beneath their blankets, I can light a candle and slip into the momentary wilderness of an unobserved inner communion.
I’m careful not to overlay this early morning practice with too much prescription, especially as the days spiral inward on themselves with the approach of Winter Solstice. Each morning is its own creative act. What I want, simply, is to listen. To enter a silence from which a more generous presence may emerge.
I may sit for an hour, journaling bits as I go. That’s a good morning. Often, my tea has barely steeped when the sound of little feet scampering down the hallway arrives to announce the day. These days, mine is a practice of allowing the fullness of life to flow in while maintaining an inner gaze — for this is my life, multi-hyphenated and brimming with kids still young enough to want my attention.
Brene Brown wrote about midlife in this way: “You can’t cure the midlife unraveling with control any more than the acquisitions, accomplishments, and alpha-parenting of our thirties cured our deep longing for permission to slow down and be imperfect.” Straddled between my thirties and forties, I resonate with both the longing for permission and the sentiment of unraveling. As artists and contemplative practitioners, as human beings, we must claim the ground that offers itself to us at any stage of life. There will be moments, like after a baby is born or when our professional or relational demands are completely overflowing, when our sense of self-nurturance might feel utterly underground. I’ve learned that even the longing remembrance of a dormant practice can be a nod toward wellbeing.
To everything, there is a season. For the past week, backlit by the arrival of December, unanswered emails have been blaring from the inbox of my closed computer. I can find no respite from the checklist scrolling through my head. There are the food drives, the winter showcase, the holiday markets, potlucks, and travel arrangements — plus all the gifts that have to be afforded, acquired, and organized. Plus, I’m nursing a seasonal cold.
These are signs of a bustling communal life. A life endowed with celebration. ‘Tis the season, I remind myself. You can do it, I remind myself.
I’ve come to suspect that many of us, especially parents and introverts (my primary camps), privately hang on by a thread through the holidays. There’s so much to do before year’s end. So many loose ends to tie up. “You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights,” wrote Maya Angelou. For those who celebrate the religious holidays this month, the mandate is to spend, deck, wrap, tinsel, carol, swap, bake, hustle, and repeat. It’s proper American. Time can feel like a horse breaking for the barn as momentum builds toward the end of the year — with us, heels clenched in stirrups, its anxious riders.
Thoreau wrote, “In Winter, warmth stands for all virtue.” For all the wisdom in retreating to the hearth as the darkness deepens, our curious instinct is to push and grasp, to cram all the nooks and crannies of the month with consumerism and acquaintanceship. Our commonplace addictions tend to become more pronounced, luring us into false solace and agitating the spirit. Loosely considered resolutions tend not to extend beyond the halo of the disco ball if we attempt them at all.
As a result, when the New Year arrives with its promise of renewal, we show up with meager provisions. In the words of Hunter S. Thompson: “thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
We might gain insight into our cultural conditioning around this time of year if we consider what we are unconsciously and collectively avoiding.
Solstice is Nature’s annual sermon on death and rebirth, on darkness and light. The season challenges our senses to recognize the beauty of barren trees and frozen ground; the tenderness that can be found deep within sorrow.
“There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill. …This subterranean fire has its altar in each man's breast; for in the coldest day, and on the bleakest hill, the traveler cherishes a warmer fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled on any hearth. A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.”
-Henry David Thoreau, “A Winter Walk”
There is a hearth within each of us that is accessible only when we give ourselves permission to feel the sadness that is intrinsic to being human. It’s this warmth Thoreau points to as the altar of the heart — the freedom of Joni Mitchell wishing for a river she could skate away on. It’s not “the most wonderful! time! of the year!” but rather the comfort of deep and abiding presence.
If you haven’t yet read
‘s Wintering, take yourself to the local bookshop and then prepare to curl up in the coziest corner you can find for the long haul. She illuminates the lessons of the cold and dark, gifting us a roadmap for the season:“I recognized winter. I saw it coming (a mile off, since you ask), and I looked it in the eye. I greeted it and let it in. I had some tricks up my sleeve, you see. I've learned them the hard way. When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favored child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable and that my feelings were signals of something important. I kept myself well fed and made sure I was getting enough sleep. I took myself for walks in the fresh air and spent time doing things that soothed me. I asked myself: What is this winter all about? I asked myself: What change is coming?
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
We can give ourselves permission to slow down and relate to this unraveling season more meaningfully. If we treat ourselves with respect and understanding, if we nurture down to the nadir, then Winter can provide the conditions we need to meet the most solemn aspects of life with a bow of inquiry: What is this winter all about? What change is coming? The essence of advent, of awaiting an auspicious arrival, is the wise practice of holding space for that which has not yet broken ground. That which is unseeable, hidden, but faithfully becoming. We need only the willingness to wake up in the dark.